The World Intellectual Property Organization says innovators in China powered global patent applications to a record last year. 

The Chinese patent office received more than one million filings in 2015, including from overseas innovators seeking patent protection inside China. That makes it the first office in worldwide to receive such a high volume of filings in a single year.

Countries following China are the United States, Japan and South Korea.

In 2015, innovators around the world filed some 2.9 million patent applications, up 7.8 percent from a year ago.